(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cooperation (linkage) information managing apparatus and a gateway apparatus for use in a cooperation information managing system, and more particularly to a technique suitable for providing a desired service to specific users who retain equipment connectable to a network such as IP (Internet Protocol) network.
(2) Description of the Related Art
With the recent progress of the radio chip integration technique, as the substitute for the conventional bar codes (individual identification information) put on books and CDs (music compact disks), a readable/writable RF-ID (Radio Frequency ID) tag (radio tag) has appeared, which is expectable to be used as an information recording medium over a wider range in the fields of distribution management, manufacturing process management in a factory, or the like in the future. It is expectable that the spread scale of this RF-ID tag will considerably exceeds that of the bar code, and considering the RF-ID tag as one element of a network service, there would be a need to employ a management system larger in scale.
For example, as one mode of the network service in the future, it is expectable to provide an appliance located around users. In this case, the “appliance” signifies a “thing” retaining individual identification information and using this individual identification information as a communication means for making communications with other apparatus. The appliance (equally referred to as an object) provides, to a user, a function unrealizable through the use of only a terminal device (for example, a portable telephone) the user retains individually.
That is, by temporarily utilizing an appliance (for example, pointing device, headphone, or the like) located around a user, the user can receives, as a service, the offering of a function unrealizable by only the terminal device the user retains individually. Incidentally, the appliance can be a thing (for example, a building, a sign, a can, or the like) which does not provide any function directly to the user's terminal device, or it can also be a public thing and a personal property.
Considering a world in which an appliance forming each of diverse personal “things” becomes recognizable by means of an RF-ID tag or the like, in a network field, the present invention provides a service using the information on these appliances.
In this connection, as means for individually managing the position of a user's mobile terminal (MN: Mobile Node), there has been known a mobile IP (see non-patent document “IP Mobility Support”, [online], September, 1996, IETF Network Working Group [Retrieved on Dec. 10, 2003], Internet <URL: http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2002.txt>) in the layer 3 [IP (Internet Protocol) layer].
This mobile IP relates to a technique in which the MN can make continuous communications while moving among a plurality of subnetworks configured through the use of the IP network, and the MN has an address (referred to as a home address) independent of the subnetwork to which it pertains at present and an address [referred to as a care of address (CoA)] dependent on the subnetwork.
In addition, with the movement, the MN properly transmits each of the aforesaid addresses to a position managing apparatus for the MN, called home agent (HA), for the position registration, while the HA stores and manages these addresses in a state associated therewith, thereby individually managing the present position of the MN. When transmitting a packet to the MN, a terminal (CN: Correspondent Node) forming the other end with respect to the MN transmits a packet to the home address of this MN, and when receiving the packet issued to the home address of this MN, the HA encapsulates this packet to transfer it to the latest care of address corresponding to the home address. Therefore, the MN can normally receive the packet from the CN even if the care of address varies due to the movement among the subnetworks to continue the communication with the CN.
Still additionally, as a technique related to the mobile IP, there has been known a technique (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-169341) in which the HA authorizes whether or not one MN is a normal user' terminal. Yet additionally, as a technique to identify the user of a terminal device connected through a network, there has been known a technique (non-patent document “The Network Access Identifier”, [online], January, 1999, IETF Network Working Group, [retrieved on Dec. 10, 2003], Internet <URL: http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2486.txt>) using NAI (Network Access Identifier).
In the case of a service which provides the aforesaid appliance to a user, it needs that the service providing side (server or the like) recognizes the association (that is, relationship in use) between a given appliance and a user using this appliance and, for example, in a case in which the network is enhanced in scale, there is a need to examine a cooperation managing facility (device) for quickly and efficiently carrying out operations such as registration, renewal and deletion of information (cooperation information) on the use relationship in conjunction with the scale enhancement (ensuring the scalability).
Moreover, the association (correspondence) between the appliance and the user using this is not always one to one (for example, one-to-many relation can be considered, such as a case using the shared use of a printer or the like) and, hence, there is a need for a cooperation managing facility dealing with this.
Still moreover, the recognition of the aforesaid association also enables realizing a service (service executable according to a situation at that site and adjustable in contents is referred to as a “context aware” service) in which desired contents such as advertisement information and emergency message for a service user having cooperation information on a specific object [in other words, satisfying a given context (situation or environment about an item)] are transferred on the basis of an attribute of an object (article, electric product or the like to which an RF-ID tag is attached) scattered in the real world, an attribute of location (tag attribute showing a characteristic of that position, for example, “conference room” and others), or the like. Also in this case, there is a need to examine a cooperation information managing facility for preventing the occurrence of a situation in which, for example, the performance (the speeds of a memory, CPU, interface or the like) of the contents receiving side (network terminal) becomes insufficient.
Yet moreover, for realizing the aforesaid “context aware” service, in a case in which the communication requires the use of a network of a different carrier (or provider), if a network of one carrier directly provides the cooperation information on a user having a specific IP address to a node in a network of another carrier, difficulty is experienced in protecting the location privacy based on tag information on a user and the concealment of a “thing” the user retains. For this reason, a cooperation managing facility for avoiding this problem also becomes necessary.